For most companies finding new business is hard. So many things must fall into place to find a new client.

​The research suggests that about 5% of a market is looking for a solution at any given time. So just by the law of averages, if you proactively approach people you will need to speak to 20 people to find one that needs your solution.

That’s a big enough challenge, but then there’s the issue of speaking to anyone. We have too much to do and we don’t believe what cold callers are telling us, so we’ve made it harder and harder to reach us. In 2020, 12-17% of outbound calls were answered by a person, today that number has dwindled to 3-4%.

When you multiply these effects together you can see why you must make a lot of cold calls to get anywhere. If on 4% of people pick up the phone, and then only 5% of those are in the market for your stuff, you need 500 calls just to find one opportunity.

[Read more…]

Getting in the door is getting harder and harder, so making the most of every time you do get through the door is becoming more and more important.

Over the years, I have seen many salespeople and business owners taking big risks with important deals by talking to only one person in the prospect company. A common outcome of this kind of “single threading” is “radio silence” after a proposal is submitted—no returned calls or emails, and ultimately no deal.

[Read more…]

Getting in the door is getting harder and harder, so making the most of every time you do get through the door is becoming more and more important.

Over the years, I have seen many salespeople and business owners taking big risks with important deals by talking to only one person in the prospect company. A common outcome of this kind of “single threading” is “radio silence” after a proposal is submitted—no returned calls or emails, and ultimately no deal.

[Read more…]

I agree with Zvi Band the author of the book Success is in your Sphere that “relationships are our most important asset”.  From everything I’ve seen, if you want to outperform in sales in the long run, you need to build your own network of people that know, like and trust you. No amount of technology or great messaging will get you even close to the salesperson with a top-notch Rolodex.

Success is in your Sphere shows you how to build a world-class network and maintain it. The book presents a framework for building relationships called “CAPITAL”. Here’s how the framework breaks down.

[Read more…]

I must admit to being a bit partial to the sales approaches laid out in Jamie Shanks’s book SPEAR Selling. Many of my thoughts on how to sell to major accounts show up on the pages of this book. Here’s a quick run through on a couple of the major elements of the book.

[Read more…]